FEMA/DHS

“Verify twice, tweet once” is a mantra continually hammered home whenever quickly evolving, controversial or incredulous situations breaks on social media. But, an unsettling New York Times piece published yesterday reveals new challenges in “verifying twice”, and should be required ...

WTH? I can’t believe what I just read. The Washington DC Fire Department, located in the heart of federal grant land, cant’ even communicate with other agencies during emergencies. Last month’s deadly Metro subway fire exposed big time problems with ...

“Volunteers bring risk that is hard to manage.” This recent tweet, made by someone with purported emergency management experience, was made in response to my asking the question about several tweets they posted discounting the concept of using volunteers for ...

I just got back from the Oregon Emergency Medical Services conference in Salem, where I talked about the use of social media for crisis communications. After the three presentations I asked one of the conference coordinators if he had heard ...

A videotaped interview of four government employees responsible for handling public information functions after the August 24, 2014 Napa, California earthquake reveals real challenges and inherent conflicts between quickly informing the public, fulfilling incident command responsibilities and ensuring the safety ...

Preaching about the use of social media tools during crisis is much easier than actually doing it. Especially for smaller agencies with limited staff. But, does that mean it can’t be done? Absolutely not. Because of the recent Ferguson, Missouri ...

Over the past two days I’ve closely followed the civil unrest in the small enclave of Ferguson, Missouri, a small suburb outside of St. Louis. A Ferguson police officer shot and killed a young African American male after some type ...

Ebola, the nasty hemorrhagic fever virus described in detail in Tom Clancy’s 1996 book Executive Orders, caused a fair amount of public consternation in the U.S., and for good reason. The latest outbreak in the African countries of Guinea, Liberia and ...

Cops vs. firefighters strikes again. Dave Statter (@Statter911) recently posted a citizen video of a police officer “assisting” a citizen out of his overturned vehicle. The video, shown here, APPEARS to show a vehicle on its side underneath a presumably compromised overhang struck by said vehicle.

Commander or collaborator? In the realm of managing emergency incidents both functions have to happen to make emergency incidents safely go away. Yet, we always assign an “incident commander”, someone responsible – organizationally and legally – for the emergency response. ...